LVI
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Heraclitus is of opinion that the flash of lightning is the first attempt of a fire to kindle; just as on earth when the flame is at first unsteady, now dying down and now darting up again. The ancients used to call this summer lightning. We now say in the plural thunder peals (tonitrua); the ancients said either thunder (tonitruum, sing.) or merely peal (noise, tonus). The foregoing remark I find in Caecina, an eloquent man, who would have had a considerable reputation as such had he not been overshadowed by Cicero’s towering form. Besides, the ancients had other variants of a similar kind. They employed with the penult short the word that we use with it long; we say fulgēre (to lighten) just as we do splendēre (to gleam). But in order to denote this sudden burst of light from the clouds their usage was to shorten the middle syllable so as to make it fulgěre.